• Predictions that in 2022 the US could crackdown on Bitcoin.
• India is a major trader but plans to prohibit ‘all private cryptocurrencies’.
• American Express sees a role for digital currencies in the future.

What a year it’s been for cryptocurrencies!

Yet in 2022 digital currencies could face a year of reckoning as one of the biggest traders of the blockchain technology, India, plans a ban on “all private cryptocurrencies”, and predictions that the US, another major player, could crack down as well.

While predictions in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) annual industry report suggest that crypto could be cracking next year, major companies including credit card issuers are backing it, along with Australia’s federal government.

It is projected that the digital payments portion of the US$200 trillion global consumer payments market will grow more than five-fold by 2030.

Recently, American Express (AmEx) CEO Stephen Squeri said during the company’s 3Q earnings call that there is a role for digital currencies, adding they can make cross-border payments “a lot more seamless”.

Visa currently offers cryptocurrency-linked cards that can be used at its 70 million merchants worldwide. 

Consumers spent more than US$1 billion worth of cryptocurrency globally in the first half of 2021.

However, regulators in all countries tend to be frightened when a burgeoning and popular sector explodes in growth and they grapple to catch up and reign it in with regulations and laws.

Look at Bitcoin. It is the first and largest digital currency in the world, and was the best-performing crypto from March 2011 to March 2021, with a whopping 230% annualized return.

With the global crypto market capitalization now standing at about US$3 trillion, that sort of growth that Bitcoin is enjoying is likely to irk governments and mainstream competitors alike and they will try to squeeze it out.